Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, faces increasing competition from the likes of Apple and Google Android. Identifying emerging trends and building new technologies could be key to cementing its future, reports Claudine Beaumont, technology editor of the Daily Telegraph.

“Oskar Korkman, the man in charge of consumer trend analysis for Nokia, says he has the best job in the world. He uses ethnographic research and analysis to better understand how human needs, wants and interactions can be catered for by mobile technology.

“Social networking is not delivering on the need for intimacy that people have in their daily life,” he warns. In a world of global citizens, there remains a desire for local relationships and local knowledge, he says. “

Drew Bamford is the person responsible for making the ITC's experience design – how the company's devices feel and work like 'HTC phones' rather than just another Android handset.
HTC's head designer's purvue is focused on …

The Next Nature website sets out to radically shift our notion of nature:
Our image of nature as static, balanced and harmonic is naive and up for reconsideration. Where technology and nature are traditionally seen as …

In 2009, W Brian Arthur published a remarkable book, The Nature of Technology, in which he formulated a coherent theory of what technology is, how it evolves and how it spurs innovation and industry.
Technology, …

Making Good our Future: Exploring the New Boundaries of Open & Social Innovation in Manufacturing
Policy Paper prepared for the European Commission
May 2015, 49 pages
As part of the Social Innovation Europe initiative, the European Commission has …

This year, the research focus of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) is on Human+Machine Futures, the blurring lines between human and machine, natural and artificial.
What happens when technology allows us to automate just …

In 2014, Ericsson and UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) entered a three-year partnership with the intention to collaborate around Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and sustainable urbanization.
One of the first explorations was driven by …

Calling the shots? is the title of a new Citizens Advice Bureau report that analyses consumer problems in the mobile phone market and explores opportunities for stronger consumer protections.
From the executive summary:
"The mobile phone market …